


Yes, Itey...

by Rags (RedK_addict)



Category: Newsies (1992)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Christmas, Friendship, Gen, Historical Accuracy, One Shot, Post-Canon, Secret Santa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-15
Updated: 2010-12-15
Packaged: 2017-10-13 16:35:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/139378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedK_addict/pseuds/Rags
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every December it's the same.  Itey comes home to the Lodging House with a bloody nose, fighting tears, and Snitch just can't bring himself to break the ugly truth to him.  Instead, they've formed a tradition of reading the editorial that appeared in The Sun two years ago.  Because, if it's in The Sun, then it must be so...  Written for AdrenalineRush for the NML Secret Santa Fanfiction Exchange.  Merry Christmas!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Yes, Itey...

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own Newsies, OR the article. Just having a bit of fun.
> 
> A/N: Okay, this article was ACTUALLY published in The New York Sun in September of 1897. I just couldn't pass it up. I've left some irrelevant bits out of it, but what I've included here is completely word-for-word (except for the part where Snitch replaces Virginia's name with Itey's, of course...). This is NOT slash, just good ol' friendship. I wrote this for Adren for the NML Secret Santa fanfiction exchange, so I really hope she likes it! She asked for something canon with either Snitch, Itey, or Blink, and I managed to squeeze them all in! :) Enjoy, and Merry Christmas!
> 
> P.S. This is also the first work of mine to NOT go up on FF.net. This is currently the only place where this story can be found. STRIKE!

It happened every year. The weather turned cold. Business fell with the snow. Itey came home with a bloody nose.

Without fail, these events happened every year, right around the beginning of December. The bloody nose was occurring with increasing frequency since that editorial had come out in _The Sun_ a couple years back. And Snitch knew exactly how to make it stop. After all, he may have been a couple years older, but the two were as close as two friends could get.

But he just didn’t have the heart to do it.

This particular evening, it was worse. Itey came back to the lodging house that night with a black eye, fighting tears. The moment he walked in, the older boys crowded around him, questions firing left and right. The poor little Italian boy refused to answer any of them, instead pushing past the crowd and up to the bunk room alone.

Or so he thought.

Snitch hoisted himself up carefully into the bed they both shared, sighing heavily as he watched his friend sulk. For several moments, neither of them broke the silence. And then Snitch spoke gently. “It was them boys over on Bleeker again, wasn’t it?” Itey hesitated before responding only with a small nod. Snitch sighed again. “Itey, why ya bother? Every year’s the same…”

“Cuz they’s wrong,” Itey said firmly.

“Well, they think they’s right,” Snitch said softly.

“Don’t matter what they _think_. They’s wrong, and they ain’t got no right tellin’ me otherwise.”

With a small frown, Snitch nodded and dropped his gaze to the floor, shifting a little uncomfortably. Then he pulled a worn, folded piece of newsprint from under the pillow of the bed, scanning over it. He knew the article by heart. It was the one thing standing in the way of his decision to tell Itey the truth. The little Italian couldn’t read very well, but Snitch could, and he was the one who’d read it to his determined friend when it was published a mere two years ago.

“You want I should read it again?” he asked softly, resigning himself once again to that lie that he simply couldn’t break. Itey nodded solemnly, clutching his knees to his chest as he stared at the wall. With a deep, steadying breath, Snitch began to read the article out loud. But as he read, he left off the name, reading it as if he were addressing Itey. “’…your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age—‘“  
“Snitch, what’s skep… skepti…”

“Skepticism. I think it means when you don’t believe something. Now shush. ‘They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds—‘”

“What’s… ‘comprehensible’ mean?” Itey asked, sounding out the word slowly.

“That’s when you understand something,” Snitch explained patiently. “Now let me finish. ‘All minds, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole truth and knowledge.’”

As Snitch paused for breath, he noticed Itey was fidgeting with a question. With a small sigh, he turned his attention to the younger boy. “I don’t get it,” Itey said softly.

Snitch rolled his eyes, but couldn’t help smiling a little. This was like a tradition for them. “It means that people ain’t got the brains to understand everything in the world, even though they think they do.” He waved the article a little, rustling the newsprint. “You want me to read this or not?”

Itey nodded emphatically. “Read it, Snitch! I wanna know! Is there a Santa Claus?”

This time, Snitch couldn’t stop the smile spreading across his face. This was the way it went every year since that first September. He knew it so well, he recited it from memory. “Yes, Itey,” he said happily. “There _is_ a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas, how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no Itey.”

The little Italian boy gave a wide grin and sank back against the pillow, eyelids drooping wearily. “You really think the world would be dreary wit’out me?” he asked sleepily.

“Course it would,” Snitch replied matter-of-factly. “You’s the most lively fella I ever met in my life. Now you wanna hear the rest of this?” Itey nodded, settling himself in to listen and trying hard to keep his eyes open. Snitch went on reading the article. “’There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

“’Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders that are unseen and unseeable in the world.’”

As Itey nodded off, his breathing becoming soft and even, Snitch gently tucked the article back under the pillow and hopped down off of the bunk. Before he left to go back downstairs, he pulled their thin blanket over the sleeping boy, giving one last smile before heading off. He shook his head to himself, wondering why on earth he couldn’t just tell Itey the truth.

When he reached the bottom of the stairs, Kid Blink met him with a curious look in his eye. “What was all that about?” the blonde boy asked.

Snitch just shrugged. “Some kids was givin’ him a hard time ‘bout Santa Claus.”

“And… what’d ya tell him?” Blink asked cautiously.

“I told him…” Snitch began hesitantly, biting his lip. “I told him they was wrong. Same’s I do every year.”

Blink shook his head in amazement, voicing the same question Snitch had been asking himself. “Why? Why don’t you just tell him the truth?”

Snitch thought about it for a moment, unsure of what to say. And then it hit him. “You remember how it felt when you found out?” he asked, to which Blink simply nodded. “I’s tryin’ to keep him from feelin’ that too soon, ya know? The kid’s like a little brother to me, and when I see him almost cryin’ cuz some boys told him there ain’t no Santa Claus… Well, I just can’t do it, Blink. I just can’t do it.”

“But there _ain’t_ no Santa Claus,” Blink insisted.

To this, Snitch just smiled and shook his head. “’No Santa Claus!’” he recited. “’Thank God he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.’”

Blink scrunched up his nose in confusion. “What’s that?”

“It was an article in _The Sun_ two years ago,” Snitch replied. “And if you see it in _The Sun_ , then it must be so.”


End file.
